One does not fall in love. One choses to love. To say that one falls in love would be to say that love is a seperate entity that can be fallen into. And then the notion of love has no meaning at all. If fate is real, it would be an individual. Fate would be God. Everything that we do would be meaningless.

In the Bible, God made the concept of choice clear. We can chose to obey him, or we can chose to disobey him. This can go all the way back to the beginning of the book.

I know this will sound crazy, but I think that every single thing that happens on this earth is planned by God. As in- every single thing. There's an old story in my religion- (I"m Jewish)- that one time, it was a crazy rainy day, and a man was rushing home, but suddenly his eye cought hold of a red leaf that was at that moment dittaching itself from the branch. The man stood still in the rain, transfixed, as he watched the leaf flutter down. For some reason, he crouched down to where the leaf had fallen and picked it up. Under was a catterpiller, that immediately started quivering from the rain. The man put the leaf back down----
basically, the idea of the story is that nothing just happens for granted.
So i really think- i'm not trying to BS you- that everything happens for a reason.
Which kind of contradicts my belief in free choice- if God already has everything planned...
Oh well- humans are all such idiots- we're all so out of the real realm of things- that I think that even if my two beliefs seem to contradict in my limited brain, they could still coexist.

God can work everything out according to his will. Like he can take a bad situation and make it good..... But I don't agree that he PLANS everything. What about the children who starve in Africa, or random, senseless violence in war? Bad things happen (that's the double edged sword of free will) but what God does is twist the bad into good. Not to say he doesn't plan SOME things, but everything...?

If you think of Fate being something controlled by God but can't get your head around how he does it without giving us free agency, think of it this way:
God created us with a premature plan in mind. The way you are thinking is that when he did this we were not given agnecy, or the ability to choose on our own, but that everything we do is based on what God wants. Not so if you think outside the box. God wanted us to make our own choice, mostly uninfluenced by him, but there comes times when, if we stray from his path that he sets something major in motion that will wither guide us back or drive us to a worse desicion. Doing this still gives us our free agency but allows His plan to continue as he dreamed it would.

If you don't believe in God then you can change every time it says God to Fate or whatever deity you belive in. IF you don't believe in a deity then you can use your imagination... and come up with a useful answer.

Purely scientifically, there is no good evidence for free will. While our knowledge of neuroscience/consciousness is currently somewhat lacking, so far it seems like we could simulate just about everything with just the right amount of chemicals or electrical signals to the brain.

On the other hand from a philosophical point of view, as a society we must at least act like everyone has free will - or else we have no real justification for having people take responsibility for anything (including crimes). Besides, not believing in free will is a little bit depressing, so while I am somewhat doubtful of its existance I choose to act like I and everyone else has free will. And maybe we do...

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